Enjoy,

Tom Speed - Editor, An Honest Tune

The members of the Meters are one of only a handful of musicians who have defined a complete musical concept. The music they started to lay down in the mid-'60s is now considered to be the blueprint to modern day New Orleans-style funk, and along with James Brown and Booker T and the M.G.'s, to funk music itself. Their laid back, yet incredibly tight, syncopated jams set the standard for such '70s funkateers as War, Kool and the Gang, Little Feat and the Commodores. At the soul of the music is George Porter's fat, creative bass lines. He and original Meters drummer (and cousin) Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste are considered the backbone of one of the finest, most inventive rhythm sections in the history of modern music. From the slinky grooves of "Cissy Strut," to the expansive, psychedelic "Ain't No Use," to the socially conscious "Africa," the Meters have long been a critically lauded success. Founding member, keyboardist Art Neville recalls, "The Meters did a lot of free stuff, what I call organized freedom, but it was some special music. The Meters never did rehearse or practice - we just played, and you can play as long as you respect what everybody is doing and there's a communication. We were looking at each other, eye to eye, and just feeling what we were doing -it was just stuff that was happening."(Funkify anthology liner notes). Their music has changed the face of modern music and, keeping with the times, has been sampled by literally hundreds of modern rap artists and D.J.'s such as Salt N Pepa, Heavy D, Ice Cube, Queen Latifa, and Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC. Porter himself has put his signature bass lines on a veritable who's who of the music industry over the last 35 years - a roster including Paul McCartney, Dr. John, Jimmy Buffet, Lee Dorsey, Taj Mahal, and Patti Labelle. In 1990, Newsday magazine proclaimed him "the funkiest electric bass player in existence," and after their 1975 world tour as the opening act for the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger proclaimed, "the Meters are the best mother fucking band in the world."

Formed in 1965 by keyboardist Neville, bassist Porter, drummer Modeliste, and guitarist Leo Nocentelli, the Meters first gained national exposure with their syncopated, heart stopping rhythms, soulful, airy interplay and Indian-chant like vocals. Neville had been around since 1954 when he penned (with his band the Hawkettes) the regionally successful "Mardi Gras Mambo." That song, along with Professor Longhair's "Go to the Mardi Gras," have gone on to become the Mardi Gras anthems of New Orleans. By 1967 the Meters began a string of instrumental R&B hits: "Cissy Strut," "Ease Back," "Look Ka PyPy," and "Sophisticated Cissy." During this period they also started working as session men at Sansu Records with famed New Orleans producer and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Allen Toussaint. While at Sansu they backed such legendary New Orleans performers as Earl King ("Soul Train"), Lee Dorsey ("Get Out My Life Woman") and Art's brother, Aaron ("Tell It Like It Is"). With Toussaint they also recorded three albums for the Josie record label: The Meters, Look Ka PyPy, and Struttin. In 1972, they were picked up by Warner Bros. Records, with whom they recorded five more albums: Cabbage Alley, Rejuvenation, Fire on the Bayou, Trick Bag and New Directions. (During this period, Art's youngest brother, Cyril, joined as percussionist/vocalist. Along with brothers Charles and Aaron, they later went on to form the internationally renowned Neville Brothers). About these albums Modern Drummer states: "Once you've found Rejuvenation, track down Fire on the Bayou. It's not quite as good as Rejuvenation, but then again, nothing is." Due to legal entanglements, most of these recordings had been out of print until 1996, when Rhino Records released a 2-CD, 43-song anthology called Funkify Your Life. Despite the critical acclaim, major commercial success never found them, and due to personal, as well as business differences, the original Meters disbanded in 1978. They had reunions in 1980 and 1984, and regrouped in 1989, after an impromptu New Orleans Jazz Fest reunion (David Russell Batiste replacing Modeliste on drums). The original three, along with Batiste, continued playing live until 1993, when Nocentelli left the band. They reformed in 1994 with long-time Neville Brothers guitarist Brian Stoltz replacing Leo, and took a new name -the Funky Meters (fans have been using this moniker for years). Due to their disbanding from '78-'89, and the inability to re-release albums, the Meters were a band that, over time, went largely unnoticed. Until recently, that is. Since the mid- '90s, interest in the Meters has skyrocketed. They have taken their rightful place as one of the grandaddies of the jamband circuit. This is due in large part to the respect paid to them by bands like idespread Panic, Phish, Galactic, String Cheese Incident and virtually every other jamband out there. All of these bands at one time or another have covered the Meters - "Ain't No Use" and "Just Kissed My Baby" have been staples in the Panic's setlists for years and New Orleans-based bands, such as Galactic and my group Juice, basically started as Meters cover bands. Last year, Porter, Neville and Batiste hooked up with Phish's Trey Anastasio and Paige McConnell to record a track for Get You A Healin', a compilation album whose proceeds go to the Musicians Clinic of New Orleans - a clinic run partly by the LSU Medical Center that gives cost effective (including free) medical care to New Orleans musicians in need.

Today when not performing with the funky Meters, Porter keeps himself busy. As a producer and recording artist he's lent his various talents to modern artists such as Tori Amos, Harry Connick Jr., David Byrne and Robbie Robertson. As a sideman, Porter regularly plays with New Orleans blues guitar legend Snooks Eaglin, with whom he released a live CD from Japan, 1998's Soul Train from Nawlins. About this combination, Wavelength magazine rightly proclaimed, "Snooks Eaglin and George Porter are, in my highly biased opinion, the greatest living R&B guitar /bass/vocal duo living today." Yet among all these accolades, Porter seems to find his true musical freedom fronting his band the Runnin' Pardners -who have been voted Offbeat magazine's #l "New Orleans style" R&B band on more than one occasion. With the Runnin' Pardners, Porter released 1990s Runnin' Partner, 1994's live album Things Ain't What They Used To Be (which was also released as a concert video), 1997's 5 song EP Funk This and the brand new Funk 'n Go Nuts. All of these albums are a testament to the freedom Porter has found and, still enjoys, since winning his battle with alcohol and drug addiction over a decade ago. "It's the integrity of the music [that matters] ...No matter what you are and what you play, you just got to keep with it. If that wasn't true I would still be doing dope, man -musically frustrated. I decided that I love this stuff too much to be fucked up all the time."

Shortly after the 2000 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, I again had the opportunity to sit down with Porter. We last got together in 1997 in Boulder, Colorado when Art Neville unexpectedly, yet quite pleasantly, joined in the interview. I found that much has changed and much has stayed the same. He's still the consummate family man (a proud Grandpa), incredibly frank with his thoughts and warm and easy-going in his actions- a classic New Orleanian. But since then, he's overhauled the Runnin' Pardners from a 7 piece to a 5-piece, his touring schedules with both the Funky Meters and the Pardners have increased considerably, and he recently has embraced the concept of live taping (the jamband tapers are rubbing off on him). On top of that he has the new album with the Runnin' Pardners and, after years of legal mumbo jumbo, all of the Meters original albums have been re-mastered and re-released on the Sundazed label.

On top of that, artistic and business differences between the original members have simmered down and after years of constant talk and speculation of a reunion, they will be performing together for the first time in 20 years on November 11 at The Warfield Theater in San Francisco. I'll have a review of that show in an upcoming issue of An Honest Tune.

AHT: What was it like growing up? Were your parents musical? Was there a lot of music around your house?

GP: Yeah, my mom and dad were both musical. My mom was more into singing in the Catholic school choir. My father was definitely a jazz fan - he listened to lots of jazz - he was real into the organ players. He knew Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott did one organ album . . . She was John Coltrane's lady, and I think everybody knew her as a vibe player, but I think she did one organ album.

AHT: Do you think hearing that and growing up, kind of directed you to do the Meters-type stuff, which was so organ-based as well?

GP: No, not at all. I can't find much depth in where I'm at, as far as what I listen to, because I tend to play music totally different from the music I prefer to listen to. I listen to a great deal of classical music, meditation-type music - music that just kinda takes the edge from what I play all the time, ya know. I play a great deal, so when I'm not playing, or when I'm trying to write a new record or write a new song, I'm probably not listening to music at all; or I'm listening to classical music, you know, quieting. I don't want to listen to that stuff all day long and then gotta play it at night, too.

AHT: People ask me for tapes and it's like I can't go back and listen to the tape to get 'em out, just because I get so sick of hearing the same stuff.

GP: Well, I have no problem listening to what I played. When Runnin' Partners is traveling and we're on a 3 or 4 night run and we're out several hundred miles from home, and several hundred miles between each gig, usually when we get up that morning to get in the van to go to the next gig, we listen to the night before' gig. The whole band -or those who were conscious. [Laughs]

AHT: Yeah. Do you all find stuff in jams and write off those tapes?

GP: Well, I have. Traditionally, the original Meters did a great deal of their writing from the jams that we did. Running Partners does a great deal of songs that have come from jams, you know, from the Muddy Waters days, as well as a few on the Funk This record - "Time Keeper" came from a jam. We just kinda organized it, and added a few chord changes that wasn't in the jam. It was just a pocket that we turned into a song.

AHT: Was that the jam from The Dragon?

GP: Yeah, exactly.

AHT: Well, back to growing up -how old were you when the Meters started or when you did your first professional gig?

GP: My very first professional gig, I got paid for it -that would be considered a professional gig -was at a sanctified church. I think they paid us a dollar and a half or something like that. We played pious, up-tempo gospel music.

AHT: Were you in a lot of gospel groups?

GP: Not really, I just did a few of those gigs with the guy who I considered my bass teacher -Benjamin Francis. His nickname was Poppy. He used to do these things all the time and he didn't like the guitar player in the band, so as often as he could, he would encourage the guitar player to let him play and I would play bass.

AHT: Did he also teach Zigaboo?

GP: No - there's two Poppy's in the New Orleans music scene - one was a drummer and his name was Walter Lastie. He was the younger brother of David and Melvin Lastie, and the other Poppy wasn't as famous - he was just the bass player in the neighborhood.

AHT: Where were you living at the time?

GP: In the 3rd Ward - I was living off of Gravier Street right between Broad and Galvez - that's called the 3rd Ward. Actually, it's between Galvez and Claiborne when I started my musical career.

AHT: So how old were you?

GP: I was probably around 13, 14.

AHT: Did you start on piano?

GP: Well, yeah. Zig and myself took piano lessons from his brother, Clinton Joshua, when I was 8 and Zig was 7. And that didn't last long because it was just too much competition between the two of us. I was actually learning the instrument and Zig wasn't quite learning the instrument, and it was causing a little confusion, so his mom just threw a brick in that said, uh-uh, this has gotta stop.

AHT: Did y'all go to the same schools?

GP: No, we went to different schools -I was going to Catholic schools, Zig was going to public schools. And then he moved, and when they moved from out of the 3rd Ward, they moved up on Valence Street - up in "Nevilleville" (laughs). It was probably 10 years before - 7 or 8 - no, pretty close to 10 years before I saw him again.

AHT: Oh, wow. So you guys hooking back up as a unit just kind of happened on an accident? 10 years later - that's when you were all about 17 -that's about when the Meters started.

GP: Well it must have been maybe 8 years. I moved up to Coliseum Street, which was right around the corner from Valence -I was like 2 blocks on Coliseum off of Valence, and Zig lived on the corner of Valence and Coliseum and Art lived in the middle of the block on Valence. So you know, it was like we were all within a rock's throw of each other's homes, although Art was a much bigger kid than the rest of us. I'd have to be in 9th grade. I went to Green for one year in 9th grade and I guess I must have been 15 or 16 years old. I'm not sure - that was too long ago. [Laughs] To my knowledge, I think I've only been held back in grammar school one year and it didn't count because I had been skipped a year. I pretty much graduated with what was supposed to be my original class anyway, because they eventually caught up to me because I got held back that one year, and they caught up to me and we eventually graduated together.I got a grade ahead of 'em and then dropped back into them.

AHT: And you didn't finish high school back then...?

GP: No, I dropped out and went on the road to play music.

AHT: So you were 17 when the music started?

GP: I guess so, man. I don't know! [Laughs] There was some serious confusion of how long we played at the Nightcap and how long we played in the French Quarter. It seemed to me that it all happened in a couple of years - 2 or 3 years - but when you start looking at the clock, when Aaron had "Tell It Like It Is" out - and when Art got back off the road from "Tell It Like It Is" - it was somewhere in the end of '67 or '66 and we started playing at the Nightcap, so we obviously didn't play at the Nightcap as long as I pictured it to be. I used to tell people we stayed there for a year, but maybe it wasn't a year. And then we went on Bourbon Street and I thought we was on Bourbon Street for a couple of Christmases at least, but it seemed like that wasn't right because we recorded "Sophisticated Cissy" in the end of 1967 and it was released in early '68. I believe January of '68. It just seems like all that stuff happened within a year - and that don't seem right to me. [Laughs] I really do think we started playing as a group somewhere in late '65. I believe Art don't remember when he came off the road. [Laughs]

AHT: I wouldn't be surprised. Did you play with all the other guys that eventually became the Meters at separate places?

GP: No, I never played with Zigaboo until [the Meters]. We played in the backyard of Zig's house and stuff as kids just beating on boxes and stuff like that. I was the only one that had a real instrument - I had an acoustic guitar - that the neighbor in the back got upset and called the police on one day. The police came to Zig's house and we all ran and I left my instrument in the back - in the yard - and the police came and they put a foot in it, and so there went my acoustic guitar. You know, Zig, Cyril, myself, and probably a couple of 3 or 4 other guys playing bottles or cans. There was only one real instrument, my guitar, and the rest of it was pots and boxes and stuff like that.

AHT: So did you know the Neville family when you were a kid?

GP: I met the Neville family at the age of 16 or something like that - 15 or 16.

AHT: What was it like running around the Quarter back then? Were you already into Toussaint's studio?

GP: We went in and started recorded tracks behind Lee Dorsey while we were on Bourbon Street for Allen and Marshall Sehorn. Allen Toussaint used to come up and see us play, and he would just come in and stand by the door - he would never make his presence known. Usually the guy at the door would tell us at the end of the night that Allen was there.

AHT: Toussaint was already a known name by that point?

GP: Oh, of course. Allen Toussaint had been out and had hit records out. I think Lee Dorsey had already had several hits out with "Working in a Coal Mine," and I don't remember what else. I think Lee may have recorded the original version of "Ride Your Pony." I don't remember, I really don't. I know Lee had already had "Sitting on my YaYa, Waiting for my YaYa". Those songs had already been local hits for Lee Dorsey, and I think Allen heard us playing as a unit at the Nightcap. By the time we moved into the Quarter, which was some months later, he approached Art about us coming in the studio and playing on some Lee Dorsey tracks. So, at that point, we did. Which tracks we recorded in that time, I don't remember. I think I kind of remember maybe "Sneaking Sally Through the Alley" might have been one of the original tracks, but I don't remember what songs were the first. I think we did two records for Lee Dorsey - or probably somewhere around 30, 35 songs. Lee Dorsey albums used to have a bunch of songs on it, so I'm not quite sure the exact number of songs that we were paid for.

AHT: Did you get paid by the song?

GP: I don't even know how we got paid! [Laughs] I don't even know if we got paid! It's just too far back to remember. I'm thinking we probably got paid, but it was a union thing - we were getting paid by sessions. technically, when you go in the studio, the union says "quote unquote" that you're paid to play every three hours. 3 hours is a session. You get paid X amount of dollars for 3 hours. Every hour after that, is overtime. So you get paid X amount of dollars on an overtime scale. Well, Toussaint was doing so many recording sessions back then, he had some kind of deal with the union.if he was in the studio 9 hours, he would just cut it down and pay you 3 sessions, which basically saved him some money. Instead of having to pay us for a three-hour session and then 6 hours OT, he'd just pay for 3 sessions. So in one sense, we were getting another bend over the barrel [laughs]. Typically we found out much later. We were young, we were recording with Allen Toussaint, and we were in the studio, very excited, playing with guys who had hit records out who we knew about. The only person in the band at that time that had any experience was Art Neville. He had hit records out on his own earlier in his career. So, I mean, he was the professional. We were just young cats, working with famous people. It didn't matter to us what we were getting paid. Being paid was the smallest thing in our mind at this point, and when they paid us, it was, "Oh! We get paid for doing this?!" This is fun!! So we enjoyed it, and we were getting paid to do it, so it was indeed an honor to be able to do that.

AHT: It's like us driving to Winston - Salem to open for y'all for 200 bucks!

GP: Hey! Dig it!!

AHT: We want to do it and we'll do it for cheap! On that same note, what are some of your favorite sessions that you've ever done with other people?

GP: Well, more recently, the Johnny Adams project. I loved all three of the Tori Amos records. Working with Tori was indeed an honor. It was an adventure. The first one was done in New Mexico. The second one was done in Denmark. And the third one was done in - no -not Denmark! - Ireland. And the third one was done in England, you know, in Northern England, so it was always an adventure working with Tori.

AHT: I want to talk about the new album. I know you've delved into serious subjects before - "Concentrate on Work" is a pretty serious song -and with the Running Pardners, songwriting-wise, you do attack personal things, but I really found that this album had a much more serious overtone with its lyrical writing. Particularly "High Above". Songwriting-wise, do you consciously try to develop that aspect of your writing?

GP: I'm learning how to do that. I'm not really a great lyricist, so I kind of ask people to submit lyrics to me. I have these grooves and I have a melody or a cap line in mind. Like "High Above" I wrote for Tori and we didn't get a chance to cut it. We cut one of the other ones. But on the way back home, I kept the track playing around in my head and with my sequencer. When I got home, I had this thing "High Above". I was trying to find a peace inside myself. So that was about as much of it as I had, so I went to these two writers - Billy Asprodites and Nancy McSween. I went to (Billy) first because he had been contacting me and said he would love to write some lyrics for me. So I told him I had this song, hook it up. (Nancy and Billy) are partners in writing. I brought Nancy the chord charts and where the chorus parts were and where I wanted "High Above" to happen. I told her that I wanted this to be sort of like a rap kind of feeling thing - rap versus singing - or not even rap - more like talk.

AHT: It's definitely got a really urban feel to it . . .

GP: So I gave her these lyrics - the "High Above" chorus section - and then asked them to write a talk section. "High Above" is the bridge. So that's what I had wrote -I had wrote the bridge - that's the only part of the song that I pretty much had - the pretty chord changes.

AHT: That's the section that's similar to Marvin Gaye's, "Holy, Holy".

GP: "Holy, Holy" - oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, the 1-6-5-4 changes! [Laugh] So her and Bill they got together and they handed me these sets of lyrics. I didn't give them melodies, first of all. I just said I want words. One

of the questions they had asked was, "Do you hear a melody? Or should I write a melody?" I said, "No, I don't want you to write a melody - all I want is the lyrics. I want words - I don't want a melody. So you're writing a poem. I don't want you to sing it to me how you feeling it".

AHT: It's a very kind of dark sounding thing - did you tell them you wanted something like that?

GP: Yeah, yeah. It was kind of the fact that, man, there's just so much stuff going on around us, that being high above and looking down on the stuff, it's like you're moving yourself from the situation and looking back at it and looking for peace inside yourself with all this craziness going on around you. So you're asking the question, "Are we losing our minds?" Why are we, as people, allowing our leaders to just allow so much of this craziness to go on? It's a political thing - and you know political songs probably would never get any air-play at all. To date it's only been played on the radio once. The effect of that first section of that song was me on the telephone and I talked the words through my telephone through David Stocker's answer machine -he miked his answer machine and then printed it on his hard drive in his computer. We tried doing it with a megaphone and we didn't like the effect -it sounded like something that somebody had done that's been done too many times. So then David came up with the idea, let's try this telephone thing.

AHT: Yeah, because it really sounds like it comes more over like on police radio - through a CB radio. Yeah, it definitely accomplishes the desired effect. I hadn't heard you really delve into that territory.

GP: Yeah, right - through a CB radio, right. It's coming through a really cheap, cheap answering machine, recorded with a 57 microphone right into the hard drive. Yeah, and we have not performed it yet, because I don't know how to perform this song. I don't have a way to make that sound. I haven't developed it so I can perform the song and sound like the record. I haven't started fooling with that yet, but I'll probably start looking into that because it's a song that we probably will start performing. You know there are a lot of tunes that you record and a bunch don't ever get played. I'm hoping that this isn't one of those.

AHT: Who would you consider a big influence songwriting-wise - not bass playing per se.

GP: I think songwriting-wise Earl King. I love what Earl King writes. If I have any influences, it's him.

AHT: What about Curtis Mayfield?

GP: I like Curtis' lyrics. I thought musically, it wasn't hard music. It was easy, simple. The lyrics were usually really strong and in-your-face lyrics, so the music didn't attract a lot of attention because the words were supposed to attract the attention. And for me, right now, I don't have lyrics that grab me at first, so I'm still creating pockets first. So sometimes I might have pockets that are overshadowing the lyrics, because that's what gets written first -the pockets.

AHT: What about bass playing-wise - have any influences in that? I've heard you say that you would listen to the lack of bass and what interested you more than anything was what the drummers were doing.

GP: Yeah - I don't think that I listen to bass players because what I'm hearing today as far as what bass players are playing, is that they're all playing the same thing. I'm not real interested in the thumping and the slapping and all that kind of stuff. And that's probably why I haven't had a hit yet. I don't know if the thump bass player is the reason why records sell. I mean, a lot of songs that are hits these days aren't telling a whole great deal of stories and so I'm not quite sure what makes a hit anymore. [Laughs] I don't know, man. I guess I have a problem with musical influences because I don't listen to what's out there. I mean, what sense does it make if I'm not going to do what they're doing? Why should I listen to them? I don't know. I just think people who care for me would like to see me be elevated to another level in the world's eyes. And they think the way that I can do that is by moving what I am to this other level of being like everybody else, and then I can be recognized in that group with everyone else. And to me, I think they're missing the point, because if all this came to an end tomorrow, I really do feel that I have accomplished something very important - I'm in the history books. I'm in books! [Laughs]. So, as long as there are books, then I'm a part of history. People can read about my efforts and my accomplishments, so that's a good thing. It means that they got guys out there with hit records that won't be in books. We [the Meters] were a part of starting something. We weren't just a band that took what someone else was doing and made it better. We started something. Now at this point in my solo life, I have to create something that can be considered a new beginning. I don't know if I have done that yet. I believe I'm punching at it and I'm punching at it, and I'm getting better. I think this record is better than the last one and the last one was better than the one prior to that one, and the one prior to that one is three times better than the first one. So I think that I'm learning.

AHT: That leads into one of my questions pretty much -what direction do you see in the development of the Runnin' Pardners? I mean, 'cuz you know, since the last time that we sat down and talked, it's a whole new band.

GP: You know, I saw a review of the record this morning and the guy hated my voice. He hated my vocals. He thought that my vocals were a very low energy. So, I told my wife this morning, "Maybe the next record I should just concentrate at being an instrumental record and not try and sing". I don't know, man.

AHT: Your voice seems to come out with more bass -lower on record than live.

GP: I really did want Allen Toussaint to work with me on my vocals on this record, but politics just wouldn't allow it to happen. I didn't have a whole bunch of money to pay him but I thought that we probably could have worked something out. I could have done sessions for him or some shit like that. I just wanted him to come and tell me what not to do. ''cuz I've seen Allen Toussaint inspire great vocal performances from some people who didn't have that to start out with. And from people who had great chops -that had too much chops -he would inspire them to do less and make more. So I really wanted that to happen but I'm not at all displeased with the vocal tracks on these songs. There are some that I thought could have been approached better or sung differently.

AHT: Contrary to what that guy said, I think it's a stronger record than some of the other stuff in that regard - especially the lyrical content. Is that something you guys are concentrating on as a group - writing more song-structured stuff?

GP: Well, right now the band is not writing with me. I'm pretty much writing on my own by myself and maybe that's something that I may want to do in the future - is get the band involved in writing songs as a band - and see how that works.

AHT: Isn't that the same way it works for the funky Meters with their originals? The individuals just come up with the tunes and it kind of goes through a litmus test.

GP: Yeah, yeah.